Library of Congress: Free to Use and Reuse: Making Public Domain and Rights-Clear Content Easier to Find. “One of our biggest challenges is letting you know about all of the content available at loc.gov. Another challenge we have is letting you know what you can do with it (in a nice way). We are working on several fronts to improve the visibility of public domain and rights-clear content. We moved one step in that direction today with the launch of our Free to Use and Reuse page.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BBC News: Twitch to ban users for ‘hate’ on other platforms. “Twitch has updated its guidelines so that abuse taking place on other platforms can contribute to a suspension on the streaming site. Directing ‘hate or harassment’ towards someone on Twitch using other services will be considered a policy violation.”

TechCrunch: Facebook confirms test of a downvote button for flagging comments. “How can Facebook promote meaningful interaction between users? By letting them downvote inappropriate comments to hide them. Facebook is now testing a downvote button on a limited set of public Page post comment reels, the company confirms to TechCrunch.”

Fader: A new Twitter project finds the origin of your favorite GIFs. “Director and Twitter favorite Matthew A. Cherry took on a bold task Friday afternoon. The self-proclaimed GIF Connoisseur announced he’d begin sourcing classic GIFs to their original video, and has so far made it through at least 20 well-used memes, sometimes with help from others.” What a terrific idea!

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Techdirt: Twitter & Facebook Want You To Follow The Olympics… But Only If The IOC Gives Its Stamp Of Approval. “It is something of an unfortunate Techdirt tradition that every time the Olympics rolls around, we are alerted to some more nonsense by the organizations that put on the event — mainly the International Olympic Committee (IOC) — going out of their way to be completely censorial in the most obnoxious ways possible. And, even worse, watching as various governments and organizations bend to the IOC’s will on no legal basis at all. In the past, this has included the IOC’s ridiculous insistence on extra trademark rights that are not based on any actual laws. But, in the age of social media it’s gotten even worse.”

Google LatLong: Six ways Google can keep you up to speed in PyeongChang. “Tomorrow thousands of athletes will come together in PyeongChang to represent their countries with the world as their audience. While the athletes are getting ready for the gold, we’re getting a few of our products ready, too. Here are six ways Google is helping you stay connected to what’s happening on the ground (and on the ice) during the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games…”

Quartz, on Thursday: Facebook is a “surveillance operation“ in an “abusive relationship” with its users, say UK lawmakers. “UK lawmakers visiting the US didn’t pull any punches at a Washington DC hearing on fake news today. ‘Isn’t Facebook a massive surveillance operation?’ asked conservative MP Rebecca Pow. Members of the UK House of Commons’s digital, culture, media and sport committee called US tech companies to George Washington University today, questioning representatives of Facebook, Alphabet, and Twitter, as well as academics and journalists on the general topic of fake news.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Los Angeles Times: Equifax hack exposed more information than we thought, documents show. “… Atlanta-based Equifax Inc. recently disclosed in a document submitted to the Senate Banking Committee, which was shared with Associated Press, that a forensic investigation found criminals accessed other information from company records. That included tax identification numbers, email addresses and phone numbers. Details, such as the expiration dates for credit cards or issuing states for driver’s licenses, were also included in the list.”

Gizmodo: Facebook Researchers Teach AI to ‘Re-Skin’ People in Real Time. “Facebook researchers have developed a new tool that maps 2D images onto humans in videos. The 2D images themselves look silly, but they’re proof of concept that AI can be trained to look past environmental noise and identify humans in complex scenes.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

AI Weirdness: Candy Heart messages written by a neural network. “I collected all the genuine heart messages I could find, and then gave them to a learning algorithm called a neural network. Given a set of data, a neural network will learn the patterns that let it imitate the original data – although its imitation is sometimes imperfect. The candy heart messages it produced… well, you be the judge.” Cool Cud. Good morning, Internet…

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